Are you aware of your real role as a teacher in the ELT classroom? Nobody likes being observed or followed by fifteen pairs of eyes, but as teachers, there are times when your effectiveness relies on how skillful you are at getting your students’ attention. Regardless of all the effort and time you take to plan a class, look for the right activities, and orchestrate the whole class; it is you, and just you who your students are watching and listening to all the time.

The teacher is the most engaging element in the classroom, or at least she or he should be. There is no video, game or activity that could compare with the endless variety of input that comes from teachers. Nothing should spoil their performance in front of a group because they wrote a script and that class is their platform, their the center stage, so they should make the most of it. In other words, they should make students believe English is reachable and possible for them.

Instructors should watch their every move, be careful of every word they pronounce because students are closely watching them . Some students are eager to hear them and imitate the word and sounds coming from them .

Actors study body language, simply because they know how powerful it is. They can embody a character or an emotion not only through the dialogues but also through their body language. The way they move can also communicate more than a thousand words. In much the same manner, instructors should use their body, arms and hands meaningfully to express ideas, moods or attitudes. They should avoid talking to themselves, expressing ideas out loud or mumbling in front of their students because all they sense is intelligible words that make them anxious and aware of their lack of knowledge.

Teachers are the ones in charge of facilitating language for their learners. In fact, they should strike the right balance between using basic and advance vocabulary. Nobody said it was going to be easy, right?

Does this mean that teachers have to do all the work? Of course not! They should let their students deduct, analyze, summarize, propose, discuss, reflect, and overall, practice with the language. However, teachers have to be aware of every word, movement, and gesture they make and try to transform every single event or moment into a meaningful learning experience.

A recording from a class might become a great source of information for instructors. Through the recording they could reflect and analyze not only their language, instructions, feedback, error correction, tone, voice inflection, or rhythm but also the way they walk and move their bodies, arms and hands as well as the gestures and faces they make. As Peter Akerly (2012) intelligently summarizes at the end of one of his lectures, [teachers] are being observed, [they] are the most interesting thing in the room, move and speak with intention”. Therefore, teachers should keep these ideas in mind whenever they are in front of a class if they want to attain their goals.